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Theocracy Now!

Max Blumenthal has a truly hilarious/terrifying video up on HuffPo today. It features GOP presidential hopefuls speaking to leaders and followers of the Religious Right — and while it’s not surprising, it’s still disgusting. Max describes some of the scenes:

Though no candidate emerged from the Summit as a clear Christian right favorite, the badly underfunded former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee won over the audience with his insistence that banning abortion would put an end to America’s illegal immigration problem. Huckabee’s comparison of “liberalized abortion” to the Holocaust further endeared him to the “value voters.”

The “if abortion was illegal there would be no illegal immigration” argument one is an interesting one because it makes very little sense in contrast to the Republican talking point that illegal immigrants are taking much-needed American jobs. It’s basically a concession that we need someone to do the jobs that immigrants are performing for low wages — followed by the argument that instead of giving those jobs to people who need money to feed themselves and their families, we should enslave women in pregnancy in order to produce the next generation of workers. Of course, chances are that a decent number of those terminated pregnancies would not have resulted in people who are doing the work that undocumented workers are doing, but for Republicans that’s beside the point. When political leaders are arguing that women should be forced to maintain pregnancies and give birth against their will in order to supply the country with workers, we should be very, very afraid.

But the Evangelicals aren’t just about abortion — they’re afraid of teh gays, too:

If anything, the movement seemed more extreme and paranoid than it did four years ago. Rev. Lou Sheldon, dubbed “Lucky Louie” by his former paymaster Jack Abramoff, told me that homosexuality is a “pathological disorder” and “a groove” that is difficult to escape from. He proceeded to passionately defend his friend, Senator Larry Craig, from allegations of homosexuality.

Blumenthal leaves out the best part of the video, which is where Sheldon asserts that homosexuality is like a virus that you could catch at any minute — and an unsuspecting young man like Max may suddenly find himself stricken.

Star Parker, a former welfare cheat who had multiple abortions, claimed to me that abortion is the leading cause of death among African American women between the ages of 25 and 34. Then she described her wish for the forced quarantine of all “sodomites.” Parker was not a lone wacko milling around in the hallway; she was a speaker invited by the Family Research Council.

It is kinda funny how they just make shit up, isn’t it? In fact, AIDS is the leading cause of death for young black women (at least as of January 2006). Black women also have much higher rates of maternal mortality than white women. The death rate from abortion doesn’t even register. And it’s social conservatives like Parker who are pushing an abstinence-only agenda that refuses to equip women with the tools to prevent HIV infection and unwanted pregnancy. It’s social conservatives like Parker who oppose welfare, aid to low-income parents, and universal health care — the things that actually help women, and that help people prevent, manage and treat HIV.

But conservatives don’t really give a rats ass about young black women (or women, or people of color in general). And they’re more than happy to boast about it:

Neoconservative activist Frank Gaffney appeared at the Summit as well. Before a standing room audience, Gaffney exclaimed that “by not being bigoted and not being racist, [George W.] Bush has embraced Islamofascists on several occasions.” Phyllis Schlaffly echoed Gaffney’s comments, declaring that there are too many mosques in America.

Yes, we are living in a country where the leaders of a major voting block are promoting bigotry and racism. Not that right-wing racism is new, of course, but they’ve at least tried to obscure it by sending coded messages (speeches in Philadelphia, Mississippi; complaints about “welfare queens;” the War on Drugs). That’s been done away with.

I really don’t understand the lying for Jesus phenomenon. If God didn’t kill more women who got abortions, then isn’t that part of his plan? For some reason their God chose to kill more people with AIDs than with botched abortions. Isn’t lying about it an admission that you don’t trust his plan? They arrogantly think that they know better than their God and he should be killing more of the whores getting abortions, but he isn’t. If your god needs you to lie for him, then is he really worth worshipping?

One of these days I’d like to hear that a gathering like this was actually a sting, like telling deadbeat dads they’ve won a free boat at the police station. Then we can get a socially beneficial quarantine, contra Parker’s suggestion, going.

Marksman2000

October 30, 2007 at 6:52 pm

if a Republican wins this time, I think we are screwed. And not in the happy way. In the much more painful way.

I don’t think you gals/guys have a lot to worry about. Americans have always allowed both parties to take turns fucking us.

It’s the Dimocrats turn now.

j swift

October 30, 2007 at 7:10 pm

The Stockdale Paradox: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

The Conservative Corollary to the Stockdale Paradox: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to ignore the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

kate

October 31, 2007 at 1:54 am

They are like some kind of monster slowly rising out of the sea. In te late seventies and eighties, one could only see the top of their head and many laughed, “Oh look! Its some little rock floating.”

Then the head rose and the ugly eyes and flaring nostrils came into view, “Oh look! Its no rock! Its some kind of scary thing, don’t look! Maybe it will go away!”

Then the head was completely exposed and some people said they could see fire spewing from its mouth, but many further inland doubted those claims.

All we can hope for now is that enough people close to shore will kill the beast and those inland will come to assist before its too late and it burns the whole damn village down.

kate

October 31, 2007 at 2:01 am

I left out the other part of the story in which the town of Big Money People over the hill had been spotted feeding the monster, mostly at night. Its been rumored that Big Money Town wants to wipe out the village, build a shopping mall and turn the villagers into service worker slaves.

But most people have refused to see the connection and have allied themselves with Big Money residents, thinking some of that money might just rub off on them if they offer their assistance.